Eight inches of snow fell in Syracuse. Temperatures fell to below 10 degrees with wind chills dipping below zero. It was the coldest day in the heart of winter. And Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim doesn’t know why anyone cares.

“It was a nice day in Syracuse, c’mon. Our fans are gonna come if it snows,” Boeheim said. “They’re gonna come to the games. Maybe down south they’re not gonna come. But they’re gonna come here. They’re used to it. I laugh when they start predicting it’s gonna be an awful day, there’s gonna be eight inches of snow. That’s nothing. That used to be nothing. They didn’t use to report that.

“They’re making an all-day broadcast about eight inches of snow. They didn’t even mention that 30 years ago. Eight inches? They didn’t even talk about it until it was over two feet. Then they mentioned it. That it might snow. I don’t know what we’re living in here. The weather casters, are they all from the south now? A normal day.

“My wife is from the south. I said, ‘How are the roads outside?’ She said, ‘They’re fine.’ Her sister’s from Alabama and she didn’t want to go out. She was like, ‘You’re going out in that?’

Boeheim’s light-hearted rant came following Syracuse’s 85-72 win over Florida State. The Orange improved to 7-5 in conference play after starting 0-4. When he was asked if he was surprised about the 22,000-plus attendance despite the harsh weather conditions, he continued to ramble about why it didn’t matter.

“C’mon. It’s a nice day in Syracuse,” Boeheim said. “As long as we’re playing good basketball, they’re gonna come. If we don’t play good basketball, they might not come anymore.”

Published on February 11, 2016 at 10:19 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3